You can see the excitement beaming like laser beams from Johnson’s eyes when he mentions the unbelievable near-make by Butler’s Gordon Hayward at last year’s Final Four. Can you imagine all the CBS suits checking their work-site insurance policies to make sure that massive strokes by on-air talent are covered if Johnson had gotten the call to do that game? Maybe that’s why they will continue to stick us with the exceptionally pleasant but soporific Jim Nantz as the play-by-play man — they want to keep Johnson around for a few more years to continue analyzing games in numerous sports in his unique and entertaining way.

We can’t really blame them — cost-effectiveness and all that — but man-oh-man, just to hear Gus make the call in one epic championship battle would be well worth the risk.